The OSPT Alliance certification program provides transport authorities with confidence that CIPURSE products are compatible with the transport and ticketing ecosystems. The program has significantly been advanced to test that products are compliant to the latest version of the CIPURSE specification, an advanced foundation for developing interoperable fare collection systems. A key enhancement of this revision is the industry’s first multiple proximity system environment, which enables access control terminals to better identify and connect with the required application on a secure-chip to authorize access.
The certification program will test all consumer products that are compliant to CIPURSE including different form factors such as limited use tickets, plastic cards, stickers, key fobs and near field communication (NFC) smartphones for native or Java based products.
“To create an open environment in any industry you need to have confidence that all products will be compatible once live in the field,” explains Laurent Cremer, Executive Director of OSPT Alliance. “While time is being taken to develop the open standards needed by the transportation and ticketing market to create a secure, sustainable and flexible infrastructure that encourages public private investments and meets the increasing needs of consumers, this would fail its essential purpose without a third party certification process.
“By using independent product certifications, we are giving the market ultimate reassurances that CIPURSE certified products will deliver the functionality of the standard accurately and successfully. The expert contribution of KEOLABS has been instrumental in achieving these latest advancements.”
While market interoperability is key, Laurent adds that the alliance also wants to be as transparent as possible. He comments: “Our aim is to promote an open and accessible testing framework so that stakeholders can view the test suites, purchase test tools for in-house testing and engage directly with the laboratory. This is something that has not previously been available within the transport industry, but is needed if we are to drive more public private partnerships and deliver the most innovative services to consumers.”